Fediverse

I'm going to tell you my core problem, just to get some feedback/vent a little: i've wanted to end my Facebook account since Cambridge Analytica. I hate the feed. But Facebook has one key thing keeping me locked in at the moment - Events.

Back in the pre and early Facebook stages, there were websites that had well-curated, broadish event calendars for my city. These are now universally dead. Websites dedicated to the local music scene? Also pretty much dead (RIP punkottawa.com). Some have tried to get something going independently in later stages, but all have failed. Even my favourite college radio station, which has folks super tied into the community and local music scene and plug stuff on the air frequently, has pretty much abandoned their community events calendar. The problem gets worse if I'm travelling outside of the city, in that I have no clue where to even start looking effectively outside of Facebook (@ me, Montrealers and Torontonians in particular). Stuff like bandsintown is ok, but misses a lot when you're more into bar gigs than concerts

I've yet to find a non-Facebook approach that captures events I'd be interested in that doesn't miss something. RSS feeds from websites for known gig spaces (either natively or with a web2rss thing) can get part of the way there, but there's been cases of stuff happening at new/unexpected venues (a hot sauce store here, at some point, became a gig venue) that I've only found out about via Facebook. And this ignoring non-music related stuff that occasionally comes up serendipitously.

I've yet to come up with a great solution, and that kinda ticks me off.

The problem is that Facebook isn't just about keeping up with your friends and family. It's an engagement platform designed to keep your attention by showing you memes and "news" and videos and ads that it knows you like. Most people have become addicted to this slow and steady stream of dopamine. You're not going to get people off their crack addiction by substituting it with marijuana.

As these social platforms become more powerful, it's up to each of us to personally find the strength to wean ourselves away from these platforms that once promised socialization but have quickly become little more than propaganda and influencing and ad-serving machines.

It's great we're seeing some alternatives but, aside from a small cohort, most people are not going to find the likes of Bluesky, Mastodon, or Lemmy engaging enough to give them that hit that they're used to.

All hail the algorithm.

Personally, I used to be the early adopter who was on all these platforms well before most of the public heard about them. In recent years, I've either deleted or stopped using my social accounts (or have chosen to use less engaging ones, like Lemmy). This has given me more time to live a life.

Boredom is something I embrace. Rather than turning to a screen to occupy me; I'll take a nap, make some tea, journal, go for a walk, do some cleaning, build something, practice something, read a book or comic. It's not as dynamic, for sure, but I get to experience and learn more about myself instead of needlessly observing the lives of others. Boredom offers a renewed sense of self and humanity. Frankly, I'm afraid younger generations won't know what benefits and beauty boredom has to offer.

You are on Lemmy and you are leaving Facebook, you don't need anything else, you've got everything already.

Friendica is probably the best choice. It's the most popular with the most servers and users, and is explicitly designed to be like facebook, and uses Activitypub.

Pleroma, judging from the FAQ; strives to be more like twitter. And as for diaspora, it uses its own protocol, so i'm not sure if it can federate with software that uses activitypub.

Facebook Marketplace is my favorite part of Facebook. Thoughts about what might replace that?

If they're on facebook, they prolly want something as close to facebook as possible, and the only one I can think of is Nextdoor. Only problem is it's mostly 50 year olds complaining about their neighboorhods's minor problems or local contractors advertising themselves over and over again. Other than that, it's pretty much facebook tit for tat without the zucc. But they got easy invite links so we could prolly change it for the better, even if that's a massive pipedream

I haven't really been using it but I wanted to throw a shoutout to https://spacehey.com/

Like people already wrote, FB is not used anymore to share your vacation and see your friends food plates. Me and about everybody around me are using FB for Marketplace (big here, about the only platform used to buy/sell), and for all kind of groups, being for hobbies like RC cars, Astronomy, Funko Pop, RVing, Painting, Costco, whatever, etc.

I have not posted a pic or a thought on FB for years, nor really read something from my hundred friends there in my FB feed, but I go there about everyday to browse my groups.

It's not as good as old forums about your car brand/model etc, but it is happening there now.

If you want to replace FB for friends/family/picture/events, no clue, maybe IG lol

Just don't use Facebook. Get your friends contact information and text/call/meme directly with them or in groups. You'll find it a much more encouraging and rewarding experience if you connect with people instead of let some big company tell you how to engage with your friends and family.

Edit: I did not expect this thread to be so controversial. I suspect a lot of people really are not ready to give up Facebook.

OfferUp is really the only FBM replacement out there. I’m just assuming that’s 1/2 of what keeps most people around. The other being that messenger, in spite of its complete lack of privacy, still hosts the largest bulk of people, for finding acquaintances and such if needed.

Signal or WIRE should be the obvious replacement for the latter but our Congress working efficiently and effectively for the people is an easier task than moving a single individual off messenger and into Signal or WIRE. You’ll probably have to no contact people on text to get them to switch.

Facebook's selling point is that your friends are already on it. If you want to convince random people, you have to show them what they'll be joining.

By that measure, there is no fediverse equivalent. You might be able to convince your friends to join for their favorite content creators, but if anything they're probably on Mastodon.

I need

No you don’t

What do you hope to gain from leaving one Facebook to join another Facebook? Break the addiction. Free yourself from needing this in your life.